Y is for YES

How do we know when we get to YES? People often say, "I just know when it's right." But what tells us this is so? As always, the body is our ally here. What we're looking for is a felt sense in the body - an image, phrase, movement, gesture, sounds, texture, sensation, emotion, any and all of these.

I once experienced that internal YES as one of those wooden ball-on-a-string toys, as if I had one inside my belly. You let the ball drop, swing it upward a little, and try to catch it with the cup in the handle you're holding. The trick is not to try too hard. When the ball lands, when it's caught itself, there's a satisfying CLICK. I experienced that sensation of things falling into their right place at the right time. That YES clicked deep in my belly. I could feel it, even almost hear it. So satisfying, content, fully present. And trusting in something beyond my trying to control the pace of things.

The shift from NO to YES is palpable. I'm paraphrasing my dear friend Howard DePorte*, a gifted mediator who says this about his clients getting to YES:

People know they've gotten to YES when they no longer feel the energy in their brain. Many people come to mediation intent on outsmarting someone, getting the advantage, winning. They sit pitched forward, ready to
do battle.

Through transformational mediation, a shift happens. People become more receptive and drop down into the heart. They often find empathy and connection with their former opponents and identify with them as fellow humans. You can actually see their shoulders relax as they sit back. Internally, they may feel more liquid and experience relief rather than resistance. With greater fluidity things move, like smiles, laughter, even tears. They tend to think better then, more creatively, because they are now thinking with the heart. Ultimately that awareness can drop even lower, from heart to belly, that other place of knowing.

*If you'd like to experience that transformation in a dispute or conflict you are having with others in your life, please contact Howard through www.pointmediation.com

So consider what felt sense let's you know it's a YES. Deciding what to eat for dinner, choosing how to spend your day off, discerning what you need to say to your colleague, making love, making art. The body will speak in different ways at different times, but it surely does speak. How do YOU know when you're at a YES?

X is for X Marks the Spot

X marks the spot. We hold a picture up at eye level on the wall, then adjust it higher or lower. We then move it laterally, until we instinctively know That's it! So we mark it, nail it, hang it. We step back and savor where and how it wanted to be all along. 

We can do right placement with objects, and we can practice it with ourselves. I moved to San Francisco somehow knowing it was the right environment for who I am and who I'm becoming. We are beings existing in space AND time, so right timing is just as important. I wrote about that some weeks back, that timing is often beyond our control. But we can try. I suspect right placement comes first, having some physical place to show up and say I am here. When we place ourselves well in space and time, with intention, life just opens up.

A friend and I are both redecorating rooms in our respective homes. Getting current by recreating our external places to match our insides. Her touchstone is that the parts and the whole should make her heart sing. This phrase and its accompanying emotions and sensations allow her to check in: Does this material's texture do it? What about that color? This style of furniture? This heart singing is an essential quality to creating a home that feels like it's really hers.  

I'm seeking to create and experience a grounded and uplifted feeling in my new healing space. That means putting in a chair rail, with a darker color below and above it all warm light and possibility. Something soft under foot, no clutter, a gauzy curtain to block out the ugly light well. The room's palette comes together, all with the sense of that grounding and uplifting.  

When placing ourselves well, we take time to check in with ourselves to find what is just right. Like Goldilocks, we assess:  too this, too that, just right. We muddle our way through by trial and error.

But how do we know we've gotten to YES?  More on that next week... 

  

W is for Wanting

It would be simple if we could just acknowledge that we want what we want.

Instead we want something and skip to the getting, as if to make the wanting itself go away. But we don't often rest in fulfillment either. We are somehow unsatisfied with the having. So we quickly find more wanting. To break this frenetic cycle, we can bring mindfulness to our wanting.

Say I have a craving for chocolate mint chip ice cream. Instead of rushing out to the corner store, I could pause as I tie my shoes and and say to the part of me that wants ice cream Yes, I know you're here. And then listen.

What do I really want? In that pause between wanting and acting, I might learn that the craving is really a longing to feel full. Hmm, curious. Just in the wondering, I find that there's more to it. Feeling full here means there'd be no space for worry about X. More curious!

So it's not about the ice cream. It's about not wanting to deal with the worry about X. This other part, this worry about X, clearly needs to be given some space of its own. So I could say Yes, here you are to that part worrying about X. I might then learn that it's trying to protect me from something bad happening. And the only way it knows how to do that is worrying. And that it wants this other outcome.

I acknowledge that wanting. Letting all the wanting be here is so powerful. And it calms down the need to take immediate action on any of them.

So acknowledging the wanting in ourselves and in parts of ourselves can open up the way to our deeper wisdom. It doesn't mean that I have to act on anything that the various parts say, unless it's good for our whole being. It is vital to validate that they want what they want, to make space for inclusion.

When a craving, a yen, a desire strikes, take some mindful time to be with it first. Let me know what unfolds.

V is for Voice

In last week's election we Americans in record numbers voiced our preference for a new direction. Choosing new leadership is just a beginning to manifesting our collective values. Mindful public policy and its skillful execution is the next challenge. In using our voice daily, not just on election day, all of us can tap the power of aligned thought and word and action.

Our words and our voice are so powerful that we can do great good or great harm with them. Mindfulness is the key. Don Miguel Ruiz's first agreement is Be impeccable with your word. Don Miguel goes on to advise: Never use the power of the word against yourself. Never repeat lies and harmful stories about yourself. Never break your word to self or others.

Notice today what non-supportive stories you tell about yourself:

"With my luck...."
"I don't know how...."
"I always...."
"I'll never...."

Notice how you do or don't use your voice when:

-You feel something's wrong.
-You see someone mistreated.
-You really want to say No, but say Yes anyway.
-It's time to ask for help.

Take care to use your voice well, to choose your thoughts, words, and actions. We all have
the power to tell our unique stories that serve our destinies.

U is for Uplifting

Within the voting booth and beyond, we are asked to choose well. The major personal and collective consideration seems to be: do we choose to act with loving intention or to react out of fear and anger? Can we be uplifted and uplifting AND stay grounded and rooted?

Visionary leaders use the power of the word to uplift and inspire people to mindful action. Imagination is so important, to dream what has not yet come into being, and to call it forth with our words and actions over time. Forty years ago the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. articulated a vision of true equality, and with Barack Obama and all of us, King's dream is taking form in an unexpected way. Obama himself has captured the imagination of many, welcoming participation with just three words: Yes, we can.

Uplifting oneself and others is not a Pollyanna, goody two shoes endeavor. Uplifting is sensing the whole, seeing the dangers, and choosing the good anyway. There's courage and rigor in choosing again and again into creative possibility. We can determine much about our lives just by where we place our attention and invest our energy.

So just notice if you spend your time and energy and thoughts on being connected, whole, uplifted or if you let yourself be bound by hopelessness and helplessness. And notice what you would prefer. You have the power to choose. In what way can you uplift yourself and someone else today?

T is for Timing

A single friend is "not looking" for a life partner. He's just living his fascinating life and staying open to finding true love along the way. He's written down every quality he prefers in a companion, so his intention is clear. Yet it's hard for him to trust his Be Happy Now policy, when he's lonely and can see nobody on the horizon. We can all sympathize with the familiar impatience and frustration of wanting, moving toward, but not yet having. 

One friend said with full trust, Oh, it's just Timing. 

Manifesting maven Rick Jarow says, "When one door closes, another opens, but all too often there is a long hallway in between." We are asked to keep the faith, act as if we already are whole because we are, and take baby steps along that long hallway. Manifesting is such a mysterious process with its own time and rhythm. 

To everything - turn, turn, turn

There is a season - turn, turn, turn

And a time for every purpose under heaven.

-lyrics by Pete Seeger, sung by The Byrds

We can be doing everything right on the way to our stated goal: clearing blocks, clarifying intention, taking daily action, receiving support. But when we're attached to a specific outcome, including a specific timetable, then we are veering away from the actual process that is happening right here, right now.

We don't even know if we're going to see the results in this lifetime. Consider Vincent Van Gogh. He only sold one painting, and yet he continues to inspire generations of artists and art lovers. Or anyone else following a life dream. Maybe the end result isn't it after all, but what we discover along the way.

Where in your life is it time to give it up to Timing?

S is for Showing Up

I'm going to help a friend pack up for a move this weekend. This is part of my m.o., showing up at a significant turning point after a long absence. Maybe it's a dramatic gesture to be just as important as the everyday reliable friends. Or it may be the healer in me responding to a cry for help. Whatever the case, I can show up for my friend it that way.

My teacher Angeles Arrien holds that Showing Up is the essential power of the Warrior, the Leader in each of us. I try to gauge how well I show up and make myself available to life. Where is it easy and where is it more of a challenge for me to be present? This year I've learned about what I prioritize based on what's been easy to commit to and where I say YES. Writing, my family, my home, certain deep friends, a new training make me say YES. And I see where it's harder to show up fully in certain aspects of my work practice and exercise routine.

The hardest thing is how often we don't show up for ourselves. Our feelings of abandonment are transformed when we can just be present and meet ourselves consciously. No fixing or healing, just meeting. I've had the great experience of being received by my own compassion in Focusing. I've felt a necessary connection made by hearing my own words and stories read to me. I've known the back and forth of therapeutic touch. My body-mind is beginning to remember how to stay rather than run off. And it feels good.

It's a lifelong process, this business of showing up. What allows you to show up - in your relationships, at work, with your creativity, with yourself?